1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card having a money payment function, which is called, for example, a telephone card, a prepaid card, or the like, and to a method of recording its money consumption. Further, the present invention relates to a method of producing a hologram tape having a characteristic code. Further, the present invention relates to a method of managing prepaid cards, and in particular to a method of managing prepaid cards, in which a shop computer reads the newest card data of a prepaid card that accesses the computer, and inherits a card use history of that prepaid card stored in a storage unit of a computer of the last managing shop that has managed that prepaid card.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventionally used card having a money payment function generally employs a magnetic recording system for recording information. One reason for employing the magnetic recording system lies in that a reader can be provided cheaply, and the system can be simply introduced into a vending machine, or the like.
On the other hand, it is inconvenient that a simpler device can decode the magnetic recording system. As a result, forgery of a card having a money payment function is rampant, causing a great loss to a card issuer.
To avoid such inconvenience, there has been proposed an idea that an optical identification member (for example, a hologram or a diffraction grating) having a specific reflection characteristic that can not be forged is provided in a card, this identification member is read by an optical reader to examine its authenticity, and sales of an article or ticket is carried out when the card is valid, as disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Patent Laid-open Nos. 3-71383 and 3-71384, for example.
It is said that preparation itself of an identification member utilizing a hologram or a diffraction grating is difficult. Further, even if it can be forged, a very large-scale or precious apparatus is required, which is quite disadvantageous from the viewpoint of costs. Thus, owing to this point, it is said that forgery of such identification member is more difficult than the magnetic recording system.
As described above, forgery of a card can be prevented by using an optical identification member. However, even if forgery of a card can be prevented, rewriting of information can be carried out simply, when the information is still recorded by the magnetic recording system. Namely, it can be considered that, by making a punched hole in a magnetic stripe in which the information is written, the information is destroyed and at the same time the magnetic stripe itself is damaged. When a new magnetic stripe is stuck on a magnetic stripe formed with a punched hole, information can be rewritten.
An object of the present invention is to provide a card having a money payment function and a method of recording money consumption that can solve the above-mentioned problems.
On the other hand, under the present conditions, forgery and alteration of a prepaid card are rampant without being exterminated. Now, a dozen or so years has passed from practicing of adding a hologram to a prepaid card to use as a hologram characteristic code. When a hologram is stuck to a prepaid card once, it is impossible to peel it off without damaging it, and its forgery and alteration are very difficult. As a result, forgery and alteration of a prepaid card added with a hologram are almost impossible. Further, automatic reading of a hologram is easy, similarly to a magnetically prepared characteristic code, and information management and handling of each prepaid card can be easily carried out.
As described above, a prepaid card added with a hologram is easy in its information management and handling, and has a large forgery/alteration-preventing effect. On the other hand, production of a hologram having a characteristic code is not always easy. Namely, different hologram master plates should be prepared correspondingly to many prepaid cards each having a characteristic code. Using those different hologram master plates, holograms having respective corresponding characteristic codes are produced. To explain this, FIG. 6 is referred to. To produce a hologram master plate, a flat picture 130 expressing a flat image 131 of a characteristic code is prepared first. A laser beam emitted from a laser 140 is divided into two beams by a light beam splitter 141. One beam is used as an object beam and the other as a reference beam. The flat image 131 is irradiated by both beams to photograph the interference fringes of the flat image 131 onto a high resolution photographic film 142′. The photographic film 142′ is developed and fixed to produce a hologram master 142. Based on the interference fringes of this hologram master 142, a hologram master plate is produced. A hologram is obtained by transferring this interference fringes of the hologram master plate onto a publicly known conventional material sheet (Details are described in: KUBOTA, Toshihiro, “Introduction to Holography”, published by Asakura Shoten, Ltd.).
As described above, when production of hologram master plates and transfer to material sheets are carried out correspondingly to and separately for each of many prepaid cards, prepaid cards become too expensive and impractical.
Present invention provides a method of producing hologram tapes each having a characteristic code, solving the above-mentioned problem.
Next, a conventional example of a method of managing prepaid cards will be described referring to FIG. 8.
It is known that shops join an on-line data management center 202 as a party for commonly using prepaid cards, and prepaid cards issued by this on-line data management center 202 are used commonly for each shop. In that case, many shops joining the on-line data management center 202 are scattered all over the country. And, the on-line data management center 202 is provided with a management center computer 220, and carries out data management of prepaid cards, which have been published by member shops, for each member shop in a batch manner.
A shop A computer 211, a shop B computer 212 and a shop C computer 213 illustrate shop computers of three shops out of the many countrywide scattered member shops joining the on-line data management center. The on-line data management center 202 is provided with the management center computer 220 that has large capacity and operates at a high speed. Those scattered shop computers 211-213 are connected to the management center computer 220 through subscriber lines 231-233 of those shops, a communication line 203, and a subscriber line 221 of the on-line data management center 202.
Each of the shop computer 211-213 daily publishes prepaid cards issued by the on-line data management center, for users, records card data to a prepaid card that accesses to the shop computer in question, and stores and manages a card use history into its own storage unit. Here, as the data, the sales data shown in FIG. 9(a) and the use data shown in FIG. 9(b) are used. Stored contents of card data are shown in FIG. 10, and stored contents of a card use history is shown in FIG. 11. A card use history consists of sales data and use data. It is assumed that thousand card numbers are published per day, giving 0001 through 9999. With respect to a card use history of an unused card published by a shop computer 211-213, only the field of the sales data is filled in the card use history shown in FIG. 11, while the field of the use data is unfilled. As a card is used, the field of the use data in a shop computer is added with entries. Business data including publication of prepaid cards and card use histories is transmitted online from each shop computer 211-213 to the management center computer 220 through the subscriber lines and the communication line as shown by one-dot chain lines, and is separately managed for each shop.
As described above, business data including publication of prepaid cards and utilization states is transmitted from each shop computer 211-213 to the management center computer 220 through the communication line including the subscriber lines, and the on-line data management center separately manages the data for each shop. A prepaid card published by a shop magnetically stores the card data shown in FIG. 10. A prepaid card of 5,000 yen has a balance of 5,000 yen in a state that a card user who has purchased the card has not used the card yet.
When a card user uses a prepaid card having a balance of 5,000 yen, for accessing the shop computer 211 of the shop A, to input 500 yen, then, the shop A computer 211 performs calculation on the card data of the prepaid card in question, recognizes the balance of 5,000 yen, subtracts 500 yen from the balance, and rewrites the balance to 4,500 yen. Further, the shop A computer 211 enters the date of use: 06301040, the paid amount: 500, the publishing shop number: a, and the card number: 001 into the fields of the use data of the card use history stored in the storage unit. It is not necessary to particularly store the balance. When the prepaid card in question is further used by 500 yen in the shop A, similar processing is carried out. Namely, the balance 4,500 yen is recognized from the prepaid card, and the paid amount 500 yen is subtracted from that balance, and the balance of the card data is rewritten to 4,000 yen. Further, the shop A computer 211 enters the date of use: 06301100, the paid amount: 500, the publishing shop number: a, and the card number: 001 into the fields of the use data of the card use history stored in its storage unit.
Next, when this prepaid card accesses the shop B computer 212 to input 1,000 yen, then, the shop B computer 212 performs calculation on the prepaid card in question, recognizes the balance 4,000 yen, subtracts the paid amount 1,000 yen from the balance, and rewrites the balance of the card data into 3,000 yen. The shop B computer 212 stores the card data of the concerned prepaid card, i.e., the publishing shop number: a, the publishing date: 06301030, the publishing value: 5,000, the balance: 3,000, the card number: 001, the paid amount: 1,000 yen into the fields of the sales data and the use data in its own storage unit. The shop B computer 212 transmits online this card data as business data to the management center computer 220. Thereafter, the prepaid card of this card number is similarly used in the shop A or shop C, until the balance becomes 0.
The management center computer 220 of the on-line data management center performs online calculation on the business data transmitted from each shop. Since processing quantity is very large, a computer that has large capacity and operates at a high speed should be prepared as the computer 220, thus making the equipment costs of the on-line data management center too expensive. When on-line processing is carried out, there arise concentration of calls to the management center computer 220 of the on-line data management center 202 from the shop computers 211-213, and this causes increase of communication equipment costs of the on-line data management center 202.
Further, a shop computer 220 is required to hold and manage card use histories of prepaid cards published by that computer. Accordingly, a computer having somewhat larger processing capacity is required as the shop computer 220, increasing equipment costs of each shop.
The present invention provides a method of managing prepaid cards, solving the above-mentioned problems.